Telephone Subscribers Decline While Mobile Number Portability Requests Rise

The number of telephone subscribers in India declined from 1,058.85 million at the end of July 2016 to 1,053.40 million at the end of August 2016, thereby showing a monthly decline rate of 0.52 per cent, official data showed here on Friday.

However, in the month of August 2016, a total of 5.13 million requests were received for mobile number portability (MNP). With this, the cumulative MNP requests increased from 229.34 million at the end of July 2016 to 234.47 million at the end of August 2016, since the implementation of MNP.

"The urban subscription declined from 610.22 million at the end of July 2016 to 606.46 million at the end of August 2016 whereas the rural subscription declined from 448.63 million to 446.94 million during the same period. The monthly decline rates of urban and rural subscription were 0.62 per cent and 0.38 per cent respectively during the month of August 2016," data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) stated.

The overall tele-density in India declined from 83.04 at the end of July 2016 to 82.54 at the end of August 2016.

Total wireless subscriber base declined from 1,034.23 million at the end of July 2016 to 1,028.88 million at the end of August 2016, thereby registering a monthly decline rate of 0.52 per cent, the sectoral regulator said.

Wireline subscriber base declined from 24.62 million at the end of July 2016 to 24.51 million at the end of August 2016.

According to the data: "Net decline in the wireline subscriber base was 0.11 million with a monthly decline rate of 0.44 per cent. The shares of urban and rural subscribers in total wireline subscribers were 83.91 per cent and 16.09 per cent respectively at the end of August 2016."